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prkaye

Well Known Member
I'm thinking I might want to upgrade my tires to "good" ones before first flight.
Somebody previously mentioned GOODYEAR FLIGHT CUSTOM lll tires. Will these work for the mains, or the nosewheel, or both?
Can somebody recommend "good" tires for both my mains and my nosewheel, that will work with the exisiting wheels?
 
prkaye said:
I'm thinking I might want to upgrade my tires to "good" ones before first flight.
Somebody previously mentioned GOODYEAR FLIGHT CUSTOM lll tires. Will these work for the mains, or the nosewheel, or both?
Can somebody recommend "good" tires for both my mains and my nosewheel, that will work with the exisiting wheels?
Click to expand...

You're going to be hard on the tires for the first several hours. Why not wear out the cheapies instead of "good" tires? :)

But to answer your question, Desser retreads are popular with a lot of RVers.
 
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I agree with Sam about starting on the kit tires.

After I wore mine out I installed Michelin Aviators (purchased from Desser). VERY nice tires. I will be replacing with the same when these wear out...but honestly they have been wearing a lot less than the kit-supplied tires.
 
What's "good"?

I am pushing 300 hours, and hundreds (maybe even thousands) of landings, on my stock Van's supplied tires and they might be half way through their life.
 
I got 160 landings and could get another 40 on the safe side from the stock tires. Now I have changed to Desser retreats and they are very nice and expect to last a lot longer. They are a bit taller and twice as heavy then Vans stock tires so you may have to readjust your wheel pants.
 
Hi Phil,

I would agree with the recommendation to use the Van's supplied tires for your first 200-300 hrs. I only got about 250 hrs out of my stock tires but could have gotten a bit more had I rotated them sooner. On my "A" model 9 one edge wore much faster than the other (inside if I remember correctly) and I did not get around to rotating them (see archives for info on tire rotation) until I had around 175 hrs on them. Had I rotated at 125-150 hrs I think I would have made it to 300+ hrs prior to having to replace them.

When I did replace them I went with the Goodyear FC III based on an Aviation Consumer article. Very little gear fairing modification was required.

Goodyear does not make a tire for the nose but I believe Desser does have a replacement for the "Lamb" tire?? The Goodyears are wearing much slower than the OEMs.

Hope this helps.

Cheers,

db
 
FC III from the beginning

I went with Flight Custom III's on the mains from day 1 and have no regrets.
 
Why?

If you already own tires, why would you replace them? As many have posted already the Van's tires are adequate for the job and will probably last for a few years, By then you will need to pull the wheels to do the bearings anyway.
If you really do decide to replace them, I will send you my shipping address as I think "stock' tires are just fine!
 
ok thanks guys.
What I was thinking was to fit my wheel pants for the other tires now, before paint. On a thready about shimmy, somebody the non-roundness of vans tires being a shimmy issue.
I guess what I'll do is start with vans tires, but just trim extra space in my wheel pants for possible future tire upgrades.
 
You dont need to do that....

prkaye said:
ok thanks guys.
What I was thinking was to fit my wheel pants for the other tires now, before paint. On a thready about shimmy, somebody the non-roundness of vans tires being a shimmy issue.
I guess what I'll do is start with vans tires, but just trim extra space in my wheel pants for possible future tire upgrades.
Click to expand...

You can trim them later without affecting anything. Even if they are painted and you trim carefully, you will not damage the paint. The fiberglas trims very easily.
 
Hey Phil!

I got 2.5 years and 450+ hrs out of the cheapies.....

My -9A (and hopefully yours too) is easy on tires. Original nosewheel has 3+ years and almost 600 hrs now - still looks good.

I trimmed my pants when I added the retreads. It worked great.
 
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I just put a set of Van's "cheapies" on the Val, because the RV-3 won't need them for quite a while, and there was no sense letting them sit there and get old. I am curious if, now that I have learned to fly the Val, they last any longer than the first set id. most likely, we'll go right back to the Desser retreads (that I've used for 20 years on planes) as soon as these wear out. But if they go 500 hours.....

Paul
 
Ironflight said:
I just put a set of Van's "cheapies" on the Val, because the RV-3 won't need them for quite a while, and there was no sense letting them sit there and get old. I am curious if, now that I have learned to fly the Val, they last any longer than the first set id. most likely, we'll go right back to the Desser retreads (that I've used for 20 years on planes) as soon as these wear out. But if they go 500 hours.....

Paul
Click to expand...

Paul,
My experience says that they will last longer than the first set...500 hours? Probably not.
The reality is that no one gets the same # of hours out of the first set as they do once they have really gotten to know the airplane (though some people never do...I see RV's touch down at 65-70 all the time).

My main point in the context of this thread...
The way you fly (land) has as much to do with how many flight hours you get from a pair of tires as what brand/model tire you are using.
Don't get me wrong...I know that some of the more expensive tires do wear longer, but I think a lot of peoples "big improvement" in tire wear on their second set was because they had learned to fly the airplane better, and the fact that they typically do far fewer landings per flight hour than they did when the airplane was brand new.
 
Owned a Velocity prior to the RV. Due to the bend in the glass gear the tires always hit initially on the outside portion of the tire. This, coupled with high landing speeds only got me about 60 landings before having to pull the tires off the rims and flip them. When I went to the Goodyear IIIs the number of landings doubled (over Michelins). Bottom line is that they will wear much longer and save you time in having to replace tires early. Tom
 
Back in the old days, when I was anal enough to track such things, I found that landings* cost me $0.25 each in tires, whether they were $40 tires or $80 tires. I went with the $80 tires so I wouldn't have to change them as often.

That said, I'd use kit tires the first time around because they're there and paid for.;)

*It seems a bit odd to me to track tire useage per hour. For good numbers there, you just have to slow down so there's more hours between landings.:rolleyes:
 
Desser...

I have Desser Monster retreads on my 9A now, and like them a lot. Showing much less wear than the kit tires so far, and markedly less shimmy on the mains.
I had to reduce air pressure a bit to get good tracking on the rollout. They are capped FC2 cores, and Desser is good about matching the cores when you buy a set.
Prepare to enlarge your openings in the wheel pant!!

Regards,
Chris
 
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